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1990
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Sells, Michael. "Banat Su'ad: Translation and Interpretive Introduction." Journal of Arabic Literature 21 (1990): 140-54.
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"Bānat Suʿād": Translation and Introduction
Author(s): Michael A. Sells and M. J. Sells
Source: Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Sep., 1990), pp. 140-154
Published by: BRILL
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BANA T SU'AD:
TRANSLATION AND INTRODUCTION'
I With the exception of some single-word variants, I have based my translation upon
the Dfwaenversion and have for the most part followed the verse order given in Tadeusz
Kowalski, Le Diwan de Kalb ibn Zuhair: Edition Critique, Krakow: Nakladem Polskiej
Adademii Umiejetno,ci 1950. Also consulted were: G. W. Freytag, Caabi ben - Sohair.
Carmenin LaudemMuhammedisDictum, Bonn: 1822, which includes text and Latin transla-
tion; J. W. Redhouse, The Burda (mantle) Poems of Ka'b, son of Zuhayr and of El-Busiri,
Private Printing. 1881-translation only; Theodor N6ldeke, Delectus veterumcarminum
arabicorum,Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1961; A. Raux, Banat Soad, Paris: Ernest Leroux,
1904; Rene Basset, La Bdnat Suc6d, publiee avec une Biographiedue Poete, une Traduction,deux
Commentaireinedits et de Notes, Alger: Typographie Adolphe Jourdan, 1910; Husain M.
Hidayat, "Banat Suc'd of Kacb bin Zuhayr", Islamic Culture 1 (1927), 67-84, text and
English translation; R.A. Nicholson, Translations of Eastern Poetryand Prose, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 1919, translation only; Mustaf{ Muhammad CImarah, Al-
Iscdd. Sharh BadnatSuCdd,Cairo: Matbacat 'Isa l-Babl 1950; cAbu Zakariyya Yahya ibn
'Ali al-Khatib al-Tibrizi, Sharh Qasidat KaCbbin Zuhayr, ed. Salah al-Din al-Munajiid, Dar
al-Kitab al-Jadid 1971; Giuseppe Gabrieli, Al-Burdatdn, 2nd. ed., Rome: Instituto per
l'Oriente 1972; Abui l-Barakat ibn al-Anbari, Qasidat al-Burdah li Kacb ibn Zuhayr,Jiddah:
Matbu'at Tihamah 1980; cAbd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, Sharh Bdnat SuCdd, Kuwait:
Maktabat al-Falah 1981; Fazl Ahmad cArlf, Sharh QayfdahBdnat Su'dd.: Hazrat KaCbbin
Zuhayr, Karaci: Ec. Em Sacid Kampani 1981; and from the Sira, 'Abd al-Malik Ibn
Hisham, Kitab sirat Rasutl Allah, ed. Ferdinand Wustenfeld, Gottingen: Dieterichsche
Universitats-Buchhandlung 1858-60; Abui al-Fada' Ismacil ibn al-Kathir, Al-Sira al-
Nabawiyya, ed. Mustafa 'Abd al-Wahld, vol. 3, Cairo: Matba'at CIsa al-Babi 1965, 699-
709; Ibn Hisham, Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya, vol. 4, Cairo: Al-Azhar, Dar al-Tawfiqiyya 1978,
100-112; cAbd al-Rahman al-Suhayli, AI-Rawd al-Unuffi Sharh al-Sira al-Nabawiyya li Ibn
Hishdm, ed. cAbd al-Rahman al-Wakil, vol. 7, Dar al-Kutub al-Haditha n.d.; Hidayat,
p. 71, lists 18 classical commentaries on the poem, including those of al-Tabrlzi (d.
502/1109) and Ibn Hisham al-Ansari (d. 761/1360) listed above. Redhouse, p. 9, men-
tions one collector who knew by heart 700 variations of the poem, and another who knew
900.
8_ ;
c-'w X jY t
The depiction of the naqa here is tied to an emphasis, strong even by the
standards of the traditional naqa section, upon blood lineage.8 The turn-
ing point in the section is the presentation of the tick sliding off the
lubricated hide of the naqa. At this point the sense of objectivity becomes
most precise, with the focus of depiction sharpened to include the
smallest detail.
Yet it is also at this point that the monumental quality of the naqa
begins to dissolve. As in other naqa sections, the sweating of the naqa is
the beginning of a transformed depiction of the animal. No longer the
monumental object of a descriptive gaze, the naqa now becomes increas-
ingly identified with her motion. Here, as elsewhere, that motion is
associated with images of fluids and fluidity, and culminates in the depic-
tion of the churning forelegs of the naqa. At this point the naqa is
transformed from the external vehicle of the poet to the expressive vehicle
of the poet's feelings. In other odes, the camel's forelegs are compared
The commentators have gone to great lengths to trace a blood line that would result
in the father being the brother and the maternal uncle being the paternal uncle. See the
diagram in Gabrieli, p. 14, note 20. In translating this vere, I have used the expression
"in-and-in-bred twice", as one that most closely relates the various stages of in-breeding
and the general concern with blood lineage, but does not sacrifice the poetry to a list of
terms (father, brother, paternal uncle, and maternal uncle) which in English would be
poetically awkward.
to the arms of a drowning man.9 In other odes too, we find that grief-
the explicit expression of which is not appropriate to the jdhill karzm-is
expressed through a dissembling simile involving lamenting women.
Shanfara, for example, compares the twang of his bow and the howling
of famished wolves to the wailing of child-bereft women, allowing an
expression of grief within a surface rhetoric of bravado that would deny
any such emotion.10 Kacb's use of this simile is more sustained than
usual, containing within it a complex but necessary enjambement
unusual in the classical Qasida. In the five verses of extended simile, the
heat of the desert (the chameleon twisting like iron in fire) and the grief
of the child-bereft women are developed simultaneously, achieving a
singular intensity through the intertwining.1"
9 See Al-Mufa,daliyyat 1:56-57, poem no. 10 (hajarta umamata), verses 26-27. The swim-
mer metaphor closes the most famous of the naqa sections, that of the Mu'allaqa of Tarafa:
see Zawzani, p. 68, verses 36-37. In Dhuf al-Rumma's A manzilatay mayyin it appears in
a revealing variant form that indicates the range of possible comparison and the impor-
tance of the underlying association with water: the arms of the camel characterized as
mutammatih, the activity of someone pulling water from a well (Macartney, p. 90).
10 Thus in verse 11 of the Lamiyya, the poet compares the twanging of his bow to the
moaning of bereaved women:
4 jj 6
See Al-Shanfara, Lamiyat alcArab, ed. Muhammad Badic Sharlif, Beirut: Dar Matbac at
Al-Haya 1964, 32-34, 44. The similes are not extended into digressions, but they can still
be considered dissembling in that the particular image chosen, bereavement, is in direct
tension with the surface semantics of the poem through their bravado emphasis upon a
denial of vulnerability. Were the poetry concerned with pure, objective description, a
range of other similes could have been chosen to bring across the sound qualities at issue
without evoking such emotions.
11 In this one case I have diverged from the order of Kowalski, choosing the order of
other versions (e.g., Freytag, Basset, al-Tibrizi, Hedayat, al-Baghdadl, al-Anbari, cArif,
and cImara) in which the chameleon verse is placed within the extended simile comparing
the forelegs of the camel to the arms of the bereaved women. Thus, the order and number
of the verses in my translation are the same as that of Kowalski with the inversion of
verses 26-27. The embedding of the desert depiction within the extended simile can make
this section of the poem difficult to follow on first reading. Yet it also gives it its extraor-
dinary power. In the translation I have used italics to clarify the poetic syntax at this
point.
12 For another example, see the Mu'allaqa of 'Antara where the poet defends his turn-
ing away from the enemy. See al-Zawzani, p. 194. I have translated the words used in
connection with the reference to the the H4ra, lamma aslamu, as "when they gave them-
selves". Ka'b, unlike Bujayr, expresses no clear idea of what it means to be a Muslim
in the religious sense, and seems to be using the root here in its more general sense of
giving (onesel) to another as a mark of allegiance-along the lines argued by M.M.
Bravmann, The Spiritual Backgroundof Early Islam, Leiden: Brill 1972, 7-26.
13 The verse appears in the version of the poem found in Wustenfeld's edition of Ibn
Hisham, the version used as a basis for the translation of J.W. Redhouse, p. 14, and in
the version and translation given by Hidayat, p. 81. I have translated the verse and have
put it in brackets to indicate that it does not exist in the Dfwan version.
14 This combination of celebration and tragic intimation can be found in the Mu'allaqa
of 'Antara and in al-A'sha's famous Qasida, waddi' hurayrata. See also the discussion of
the parallel tension between muruwwa and pessimism inJ.E. Montgomery, "Dichotomy
in Jdhilf Poetry", Journal of Arabic Literature 17 (1986), 1-20.
Hook-nosed,
ears of clear pedigree-
for one trained to see-
cheeks-polished,
She strides into her gallop,
legs like lances,
rawboned, flying,
barely meeting the ground,
She wails,
upper arms limp,
her mind, as they cry out
the death of her eldest, loosening.